Sunday, March 17, 2002

Today I got a simple SMS message. It said: PLEASE CHECK MAIL. There was a number there, but it wasn't listed in my handphone directory. As I was in the middle of Prangin Mall at that time, watching over my sister like some kind of unpaid bodyguard, I couldn't very well do that. But as I stood there reading over the SMS and wondering who sent it ( I found out who later on when I checked my mail upon getting home ), I started wondering why the PIQ ( Person-In-Question ) even bothered sending me a SMS asking me to check my mail. It wasn't like the person didn't know that I was this 'I check my mail every hour of the day' kind of guy. And it wouldn't have killed to just give me a call and tell me the message over the phone. Because if it was important enough to warrant an email and a SMS, I think that the PIQ would have been better off calling me instead, or just leaving things as they were because I would have checked my email anyway.

As it is, the SMS pissed me off needlessly. I have this subconscious resistance towards people telling me what to do when they already know that I'll be doing it anyway. It's like telling the world they have such little control over their lives, they have to tell people to do things those people are already going to do just to assure themselves that yes, they can still be in control of the situation. For example, this might happen over ICQ:

Like I would drop what I'm doing at that moment to entertain them. Of course I would continue what I'm doing. Why do they need to tell me to continue what I'm doing? Why do they need to give me their permission to continue what I'm doing? It's my own time online, so I bloody hell do what I want to do with it.

I should learn to filter these things out. But at the moment... sigh. They still vex me. They still vex me greatly. And that, sometimes, is a good thing. Anger can be such a good stimulant. Just that the annoyance and irritation can sometimes be a pain.